Broforce Review – A Bromance with Disaster

Broforce is just about the sloppiest kiss you could get of 1980s nostalgia today. Surely, the over the top presentation wears thin rather quickly, but in the window of time it’s in effect, you’re bound to have a good time in this game with friends or randoms, via drop-in drop-out multiplayer, or by playing solo.

As the name suggests, Broforce is very macho. Macho to the nth degree. It brings to the table practically every hero from that golden decade in entertainment, down to the lowliest of low TV show heroes. You’ll find all the usual suspects, plus a few more surprises along the way. Who shows up is part of Broforce’s charm and honestly, its main draw, so we’ll keep this review relatively spoiler-free as to their identity. Safe to say, you’re bound to have a chuckle or two with these guys and how close they resemble the real deal without using any real names and direct likenesses.

Each of these bros brings in their own particular flavor of chaos to the game, from heat-guided rockets to remote bomb chickens. You don’t get to pick which hero you’re using right away. That’s decided randomly when you pick up prisoners, when the game instantly switches your hero out.

The colorful aesthetic Broforce has going plays well with the incredible amount of violence and brute force that takes place from minute zero. You could call its graphics retro, or about as retro as you’d come to expect from an indie game these days, i.e they look pixelated and very reminiscent of (in the style that’s always erroneously referred to as) 8-bit. Sound-wise, Broforce sounds like you’d expect from a gathering of 1980s action stars, that is, quips, one-liners, screams and of course, explosions all over. This game is loud and proud of it, and will probably remind you of old arcade games that blared out attract screens in arcades decades ago.

Unlike those arcades, though, Broforce has a little bit more meat on its bones. It features a couple of different modes in which you start out with one bro and assemble your team by playing through the ridiculous story. That, or you can unassumingly destroy the opposition over a series of increasingly tougher levels, much akin to the aforementioned old school games.

All in all, the main draw to Broforce is its incredibly charming and silly presentation. It’s a game that doesn’t warrant a whole lot of thought, and works extremely well in that regard. There’s not a whole lot to come back to in this game other than the funny references and homages, but they’re so lovingly made that it makes it worth its modest price tag just to see who else will jump into the bro fray next.